Are you a practice owner or manager suffering with same-day cancellations and no-shows? Unsure how to handle them or what you can do about it? Are you giving your front office team scripts and policy and expecting they’ll enforce it; only to be met with uncertainty and inconsistency?
If so, you’re not alone. Same-day cancellations and no-shows can cause frustration and confusion; they can lead us to make poor choices from our anger and upset.
You may find, when you enforce a cancellations policy, that your arrival rate rises for a short time, but doesn’t remain consistent. Eventually it might even drop lower than where it was before you started enforcing it.
Most practices that I speak with strive for 92% arrival rate; but many struggle to remain in the low 80's on a good week. That was our clinic 8 years ago and it was super frustrating. And, it became my mission to solve the dilemma of the same-day cancellation / no-show issue and our arrival rate now rests at a consistent 95-96%.
Anytime a patient same-day cancels or no-shows, they aren’t just hurting themselves or the practice. They’re also keeping other patients from getting in for care. So, avoiding the same-day, last minute cancellation is essential for everyone you’re trying to help. And, well, no-shows are just a no-no.
Before you go enforcing policy, it’s important to understand ‘why’ someone cancels or no-shows on the day of their appointment.
There really is only one simple reason; they don’t understand that they need to provide notice. If you’re like me and you’ve been around for a while, you’ve seen the change occur; I blame cell phones and Amazon.
Life has become instantaneous. You can text and I can respond simultaneously. You can order something on Amazon, and there’s 2-day shipping. And seriously, if you live in a neighborhood like mine with an Amazon facility nearby, you could even get it delivered as early as today!
While people’s needs haven’t changed, their demand for speed of service has.
They want things instantaneously, they want to feel better now, and they want to invest as little as possible to get results; little time, little money, and little work.
If you want to make sure your patients arrive for care or give you enough notice, you need to make sure they understand what to expect from your care, and what you expect from them.
Without understanding, people make up their own idea of what’s true; and it will always be what’s true to them. And when you then try to enforce your policy on them, they’ll get upset, angry and might even stomp out of the office.
So, to decrease your same-day cancellations, start by making sure that everyone understands.
Train your front office team to ensure they understands what they need from their patients. Train your patients so they know what to expect from your practice AND what the practice expects from them. This will ensure that everyone is on the same page and acting accordingly.
Are you unsure about how to get everyone on the same page? Want a system that you can use to train new hires and retrain your current team when arrival rate is down?
At Front Office GURU, we offer training, systems, and coaching to ensure your practice becomes efficient and effective and preventing same-day cancellations and no-shows. You can get started as early as today. Sign up for a FREE Discovery Call to learn more about how we’ve helped practices across the USA and Canada take control of their arrival rate. Owners, want more freedom? Sign up today.
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Read Britt's Success Story:
"We love the opportunity to communicate with our patients more efficiently, ensuring their experience within our clinic is completely well rounded from the care they receive to the front desk. The many tools and training sessions are providing excellent unity within our several locations, providing a whole team consistency. The compliments from patients are rewarding and enriching as we strive to help them. Dee has done an awesome job of creating efficient training that bridges patient experiences and therapist goals into a flawless program for clinics.
Thank you for all you do, your program is awesome. You truly have hit the nail on the head for everything you bring to us. If you were to branch out to all medical businesses, whew, what a business!"
- Britt, Patient Care Coordinator, Advantage Physical Therapy, Washington
